Encased

Speculative lyrical poetry inspired by winter's early nightfall and the fear and hope surrounding the night sky

Natalie Korman is a poet, fiction writer, and the author of the microchapbook Heliotropics (dancing girl press, 2017). Her poetry has most recently appeared in Harpy Hybrid Review, Sublunary Review, and Channel, a journal of environmental writing in Ireland. She is also proud to have poems published by Recenter Press Poetry Journal and River River Writers Circle, among others. An alumna of Barnard College, Natalie lives in California where she enjoys contemplating the poetics of the banana slug.

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Snow at the base of the redwood tree
a bloodless offering 
still in drought, the snow
contains that many billions of droplets
I could see the caps of the mountains from the freeway
waves climbing up through my mind
just as I could still see the moon rising out of the womb
of the planet, almost beyond my focus

yes, trillions of droplets come down from the mountains
even in these lower California foothills, these childlike rises
it falls, the ice, the snow
the slushy breath of the earth encasing itself
so that we may live another season
there is snow here on this western front
there is snow throughout the vineyard
there is snow among the apple trees

now they’re saying frost on the runway
a chunk of ice takes out a satellite
but I dig a warmer cable straight to you
the stars burn all the more bright this way
and the track which takes this sleek silver train
bursts brilliantly through the pass
my book in my hand, my talisman of the darkness
an ancient way to sit serene and connected
beside the smooth and finely cut obsidian of the night

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